apache / apache/pekko-persistence-cassandra

Cassandra 5.0 Unified Compaction Strategy (UCS)

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#364 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
help wanted
Dominant language
Scala
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Description

### Discussed in https://github.com/apache/pekko-persistence-cassandra/discussions/363

Originally posted by **EmadAlblueshi** January 27, 2026
Hello Everyone,

The current compaction strategy employed for the Apache Cassandra tables is `SizeTieredCompactionStrategy` which is fine for version 4 but version 5 is using `UnifiedCompactionStrategy` as the default strategy and [recommended ](https://cassandra.apache.org/doc/stable/cassandra/managing/operating/compaction/ucs.html)

> The UnifiedCompactionStrategy (UCS) is recommended for most workloads, whether read-heavy, write-heavy, mixed read-write, or time-series. There is no need to use legacy compaction strategies, because UCS can be configured to behave like any of them.

Do we have any plans to update the current tables to use `UnifiedCompactionStrategy `in line with version 5 best practices?

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with discussion 363, then locate the current Cassandra table definitions and compaction-strategy configuration in the repository. Compare the existing setup with Cassandra 5.0's UnifiedCompactionStrategy guidance; the work is done when the applicable tables use the intended strategy consistently.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cassandra, scala
Domain
databases
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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